Four Blondes

  Sure enough, in about a minute Tanner shows up, fingering a joint. “You look like you could use this,” he says.

  “Do I look that bad?”

  “You just look like . . . you’re not having any fun.”

  “I’m not.”

  “How are you, baby?” he says, sitting with his legs open, delicately holding the joint between his thumb and forefinger as he inhales deeply. “I told you not to marry that poofster. Didn’t I? Didn’t I tell you he’d make you miserable? You should have run off with me when you had the chance.”

  “That’s right,” I say miserably, thinking about how after Tanner and I had sex, we would both be ripped and slightly bloody. He grabs my wrist now and says, “I’m still hot for you, baby. Still very, very hot,” and I say, “Is this a compliment?” and he says, “It’s a reality,” and I say, “I have to get out of here.” I run back up the path, looking over my shoulder to see if he’s following and he isn’t and I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing, and I cross through the lobby and out the front door, where Dianna is standing in front of the hotel, shouting for the car.

  And moments later we’re all drunk and stoned and fucked up and in the Mercedes again, driving back to the yacht in Cannes and there are people, men mostly, in the car whom I’ve never seen before and never want to see again.

  This guy with spiky dark hair and a black T-shirt keeps leaning over me, chanting, “Where I have gone, I would not go back,” which is a line I think he read in a Bret Easton Ellis novel, but while I’m seriously wondering if he even can read, I respond, “I don’t know why I’m here, I guess because Dianna invited me.”

  “I’m a big rucking STAR,” Dianna screams.

  And then, I don’t know exactly how to describe it, I feel like the world is pulling away while at the same time becoming seriously claustrophic. I shout, “Stop the car,” and everybody turns and looks at me like I’m insane, but they sort of expect me to be insane anyway, and the car does come to a stop in the middle of Cannes and I do climb over three men and fumble desperately with the door handle, which finally releases and before anyone really knows what’s happened I’ve spilled out of the car and into a crowd of people on the sidewalk. I look back at the car and slide out of my high heels, grasping them in my hand as I begin running through the crowd toward the Majestic Hotel, where there’s a swarm of photographers and kleig lights. I veer onto a side street, passing a gay bar where there’s a man wearing a tutu, and I nearly run into the little girl with the red roses, who grabs my wrist and says, “Madame, come with me.”

  And this time, I do.

  * * *

  In the early morning I am walking back to the yacht, feeling even MORE hungover and wasted than I ever have in my life, except maybe when I was younger and I first met Tanner and we would spend whole weekends snorting cocaine and drinking vodka. I would very often call in sick on Monday, but I never got in trouble because everyone knew I was seeing a big movie star and that was more important for the image of the gallery than having someone answer the phone. And it was especially useful when Tanner used to come into the gallery to pick me up. He was obsessed with me at first and would stop by the gallery quite often, just to make sure that some other man wasn’t trying to seduce me, and these incidents were usually faithfully recorded by the gossip columns (although they didn’t mention my name, because I wasn’t “somebody” then), providing free publicity for the gallery. Everyone treated me awfully well and seemed to really like me, but did they have a choice? Even back then I was being USED by other people for my ability to attract men. And I have never wondered about this before, but I do now: Would I be ANYTHING without a man?

  A taxi pulls up in front of the yacht, and a tall, handsome man wearing a polo shirt and jeans gets out and turns toward me, and I realize it’s my husband.

  The sun is shining; it must be later than I thought. The bustle of the harbor begins to fill my consciousness—the first mates hosing the decks, a young woman walking by with produce from the farmer’s market, people scurrying by with press passes—and as Hubert approaches, holding his beat-up leather valise, I see, for the first time, his prodigious blandness. How, underneath all the fuss about his family and his looks and his background, he is still, in the end, JUST SOME GUY.

  “Hey,” he says. “What happened to you?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “You’re bleeding. You’ve got blood on your hands.” He looks down. “And on your feet. And ink stains. What happened to your shoes?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, how are you, anyway? Did you get my message?”

  “That you were coming?”

  “About renting a speedboat. Hey, as long as I’m here, I thought it might be fun if we spent the day waterskiing.”

  Waterskiing?

  Hubert carries his bag onto the yacht. “Marc De Belond has a house here. I thought we might hook up with him.”

  Hook up?

  “Hey baby,” he says. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like Marc De Belond?”

  I turn and hold up my bloody hands.

  I say, “The gay men took my shoes.”

  IX

  Dear Diary:

  You’re not going to believe this, but I’m STILL on this DAMN boat floating around in the Italian Riviera.

  And Hubert is still here.

  Okay. Here’s the problem. Number one, I think I’m going insane, but I’m not sure if it’s because I’m sick to death of being stuck on this boat with Hubert and Dianna, or if maybe I really am a NUT JOB like everyone says.

  Because number two: People saw me that night at that café with the little girl. And her little friends. And the strange gay men, who tried to take my dress—they kept saying the word “copier,” which I supposed meant they wanted to copy the dress and then give it back—but there wasn’t enough time. And all the glasses of cognac. And the broken glass on the floor. And sure enough, this “yet another embarrassing incident” was reported in Paris Match.

  “I don’t think I’m going to change much,” I said to Hubert, quite threateningly, after he’d read it and, without saying anything, evinced his displeasure by raising his eyebrows. Dianna defended me: “Sweet Jesus, Hub, I’ve been accused of killing my husband. Aliens took away half of my husband’s body. And you’re upset about your wife being spotted with underage street urchins and a couple of gay guys in dresses?” And then I said, cunningly, I thought, “All I wanted was a little attention.”

  Which is true. That was all I wanted. Because I still don’t feel like I get attention from my husband, which is really crazy because he did fly all the way here to be with me and then took an unexpected week off, but I don’t just want him to BE HERE. I want him to pay a certain and specific kind of attention to me, and he just doesn’t.

  When I’m with him, I don’t feel . . . significant. I want to be everything to him. I want to be essential. I want him to be unable to live without me, but how can I be these things if he won’t let me?

  And if he won’t let me, what am I doing with my life?

  Naturally, these thoughts put a horrible expression on my face. At least I think they do, because this morning, when I’m lying in bed and Hubert comes into our stateroom supposedly looking for sunscreen, he turns to me and says, in a tone of voice that I can only interpret as RUDE, “What’s your problem?”

  I know my response should be “Nothing, darling,” but I’m tired of mollifying him. Instead, I say, “What do you mean, what’s my problem? What’s your problem?” and I turn over.

  “Whoa,” he says. “Maybe you should go back to sleep and try waking up again.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Maybe I should.”

  Then he leaves the room.

  I HATE him.

  I jump out of bed, pull on my bathing suit, and storm up to the top deck.

  Dianna is there, drinking coffee and polishing her toenails, which, as we all know, is verboten on this boat because the nail polish could
spill and ruin the teak decks. As we also all know, Dianna doesn’t give a shit. She’s already caused thousands of dollars of worth of damage to the boat by walking around in spike heels and greasing her body with tanning oil, leaving indelible footprints that the crew keeps pointlessly trying to scrub away. “Hey, I could buy this boat if I wanted to,” she keeps reminding them. But the point is, people like Dianna Moon never do.

  “Hi sugar,” Dianna says, not looking up. “Want some coffee?”

  “Coffee makes me vomit. In fact, everything makes me vomit.”

  She looks up in alarm. “I don’t, do I?”

  “No,” I say, resignedly. I move to the railing, leaning over the side. The wind ruffles my hair slightly. This Dianna Moon business—her self-absorbtion, her prodigious insecurity—is getting to be too much.

  “Do I look fat?” Dianna asks, and I automatically respond, “No,” although the truth is, Dianna is a bit fat. She has the kind of body that will be matronly at thirty-five, no matter how much she diets or exercises.

  “Are you going to Hubert’s aunt’s house today?”

  SHIT. Princess Ursula. I’d totally forgotten about her and nod glumly, remembering that Princess Ursula hates me. Once, at a funeral, she came up to me and said, “Oh Cecelia, you’re such a natural at funerals, because you always have a sour, downturned expression on your face.”

  And these are my relations?

  “Do you think,” Dianna says, examining her large toe, “that Lil’Bit Parsons will be there?”

  This is such an unexpected question, so out of left field, that I say nothing as the terrible feeling of other people knowing something I don’t descends upon me like a shade blocking out the sun.

  “Lil’Bit Parsons?” I croak.

  “I don’t want to upset you, but I read in the Star that she’s in Europe. Vacationing with her two kids.” Diana screws up her face as I begin hyperventilating and stumbling around the deck, unsure as to whether or not I’m going to throw up, and she says, “There was a picture of her in . . . Saint Tropez?”

  “That fucking BASTARD,” I say, somehow getting ahold of myself and tripping down the stairs and into the galley, where Paul, the captain, is talking in whispered tones to the cook, whose name I can never remember.

  “Where’s my husband?” I ask.

  Paul and the cook exchange looks. “I think he’s on the aft deck. Getting ready to go scuba diving.”

  “That’s what he thinks,” I snap, making my way to the back of the boat, where Hubert is pulling on a dive skin.

  “Hi,” he says nonchalantly.

  “What are you doing?” I ask coldly.

  “I’m going to scuba dive into the port. I thought it’d be cool.”

  “That’s a smart idea,” I say sarcastically. “Maybe you’ll get ground up by a propeller.”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake,” he says, rolling his eyes.

  “You just don’t give a shit about me, do you?”

  “Leave me alone, huh?” he says, pulling the dive skin over his shoulder.

  “I am so sick of your shit,” I scream, running to him and hitting him until he grabs my wrists and pushes me roughly away. “What the FUCK is your problem?” he says.

  I reel back, stunned. Recovering somewhat, I say, “I want to talk to you.”

  “Yeah? Well, I don’t want to talk to you.”

  Has my husband ever spoken to me like this before? “I HAVE to talk to you,” I say. “Right now.”

  “You just don’t get it, do you?” he says, shoving his feet into a pair of flippers.

  “Get what?” I demand.

  “That I am sick and tired of you trying to control me all the time. Okay? Just let me be. Just let me do my thing for a change, okay?”

  “Your thing? All you do is your thing.”

  For a moment, he says nothing and we stare at each other hatefully. Then he says, “What do you want from me, Cecelia?”

  I want you to love me is what I want to say, but can’t.

  “I came on this vacation for you, okay?” he says. “You wanted to come on Dianna Moon’s yacht and we’re on her yacht. I’m here. You’re always complaining that we never do what you want to do. And when we do it, it still isn’t enough.”

  “Then how come we have to go to Princess Ursula’s this afternoon? We always do what you want to do.”

  “Princess Ursula is family, okay? Do you think you can understand that concept?”

  “It’s not that. . . .”

  “Oh yeah? Well, what is it? Because I’m getting pretty sick and tired of your attitude.”

  Oh God. Why do these arguments always go nowhere? Why can’t I make myself heard?

  “You’re seeing Lil’Bit Parsons again, aren’t you?” I say triumphantly.

  That stops him dead. “Wha . . .?” he says, but he looks away quickly, and I know I’ve got him. “Give me a break,” he says lamely.

  “You are seeing her. I know everything. She’s in Europe, vacationing with her kids. She was in Saint Tropez.”

  “So?”

  “So you snuck out and met her,” I say, even though I have no actual knowledge of this incident and can’t even recall when it might have happened.

  “Stop this,” he says.

  “You saw her. You’re guilty.”

  “I am not going to discuss this, Cecelia.”

  “You’re not going to discuss it because I’m right. You saw her again. Why don’t you just admit it?”

  “I said, I’m not going to discuss this.”

  “Well remember this, buddy,” I say. “The last time you didn’t want to discuss it, it was in . . . all . . . the . . . NEWSPAPERS,” I scream. So loudly that I feel like my head is going to explode.

  Hubert looks at me (sadly, I think), then jumps into the water. I turn and pass Paul and the cook, who have the fucking temerity to give me their wimpy half smiles as if nothing at all has occurred. I wonder how I can bear living like this, and I go up on the deck and thank God Dianna is there. I sit down and put my head in my hands.

  “There are photographers on the dock,” she says.

  “There’s going to be a great photo of Hubert shoving you,” she says.

  “Definitely cover of Star magazine,” she says.

  “I can’t take this,” I say.

  “She’s never going to give up, you know?” Dianna says. “She’s a movie star. And movie stars can’t stand to be rejected. She can’t believe he chose you over her. She’ll be tracking him down until the day he dies, baby. And even then she’ll be elbowing you out of the way at the funeral. Just like Paula Yates.” She yawns and rolls over, spilling the bottle of nail polish on the deck.

  One of the things you learn about being married is that you don’t have to continue every fight to the death. You can take a little break. Pretend that nothing has happened. I’ve found this works with Hubert, who, I’m beginning to realize, gets confused easily. Which is probably why he ended up dating Lil’Bit Parsons in the first place. She completely manipulated him.

  And so, when he returns to the boat, water streaming off his dive skin (which shows off all the muscles in his body, including his washboard stomach), Dianna and I are laughing and drinking champagne as if nothing in the world is wrong. I pour him a glass of champagne, and he is relieved, thinking that maybe the fight is over.

  But it isn’t.

  I pick up the fight again when Hubert and I are in the taxi, making our way to Sir Ernie and Princess Ursula’s villa in the hills of Porto Ercole.

  “Why did you break up with her?” I ask innocently. Hubert is holding my hand, staring out the window at the grape arbors, and he turns and says, “Who?” but there’s a tiny edge in his voice, as if he knows what’s coming next.

  “You know,” I say. “Lil’Bit.”

  “Oh,” he says. “You know. I met you.”

  This answer is, of course, not satisfying, or at least not satisfying enough, so I say, “Didn’t Lil’Bit stay with Princess Ursula
every September?”

  “I don’t remember,” he says. “They’re good friends. They’ve known each other since Lil’Bit was in high school in Switzerland.”

  “High school in Switzerland. What a lovely expression,” I say nastily. And he says, “What’s wrong with it?” And I say, in order not to divert us from the main topic, “Did you go with her? To Porto Ercole? Every September with your aunt?”

  “You know I did, okay?” he says.

  “It must have been so cozy,” I say. “Everyone getting along. Everyone best friends.”

  “It wasn’t bad,” he says.

  “It’s not my fault that Ursula hates me.”

  “Ursula doesn’t hate you. But she thinks you don’t treat me well.” This is an astonishing bit of information which I decide not to pursue. Instead, I yawn loudly and say, “Lil’Bit Parsons has had the easiest life of anybody I’ve ever known.”

  “She hasn’t had an easy life,” Hubert says. “Her boyfriend beat her up.”

  “Oh, big fucking deal. Her boyfriend beat her up. She had a few bruises. If he was so horrible, why didn’t she leave him?”

  “She’s not that kind of person, okay?”

  “Her daddy was rich, and when she was seventeen, she started modeling and then she got her first part at nineteen. Tough life.”

  “Just because she didn’t grow up in a commune doesn’t mean she hasn’t had a hard time.”

  “Yes it does,” I say. “Okay? Do you get that?”

  “No,” he says. “I don’t. And I don’t get you.”

  We ride the rest of the way in silence.

  At the villa, Princess Ursula greets us by the pool, wearing her bathing suit with a sarong wrapped around her waist (she’s fifty-five but still thinks she has an excellent figure and shows it off on every possible occasion), and in a casual voice which is tinged with both French and English accents, mentions “nonchalantly” that dear Lil’Bit is indeed in Porto Ercole, having taking her own villa for two weeks, and is, “ha ha,” coming for lunch, and isn’t this a “wonderful surprise.”

  Hubert looks at me, but somehow, miraculously, I don’t react (much as a prisoner brought into an enemy camp knows not to react), and Hubert reaches out and takes my hand and says, “That’s so funny. Cecelia and I were just talking about whether or not Lil’Bit might be here. Cecelia said she would.”